Frying Tonight was made by a husband and wife team of filmmakers from Leeds, Betty and Cyril Ramsden. They began making films in 1945 and continued into the mid 1960s. During this time they made over 50 films, mostly in high quality 16mm film and in colour. Their collection of films was donated to the YFA in the spring of 2006.  It is an outstanding collection: by virtue of its remarkable technical quality, composition and broad subject matter. As well as family and holiday films, there are a...

Frying Tonight was made by a husband and wife team of filmmakers from Leeds, Betty and Cyril Ramsden. They began making films in 1945 and continued into the mid 1960s. During this time they made over 50 films, mostly in high quality 16mm film and in colour. Their collection of films was donated to the YFA in the spring of 2006.  It is an outstanding collection: by virtue of its remarkable technical quality, composition and broad subject matter. As well as family and holiday films, there are a wide range of documentary type films and some fictional films done with a light humour. Their film collection was made the subject of a BBC/Open University television programme, Nation on Film, made in 2006, narrated by Sir David Jason – for more on the Ramsden’s see the Context for Humber Highway (1956).

 

At the end of the film Cyril is shown throwing his fish and chip wrapper over the hedge into his own dental practice –  now known as Far Headingley Dental Care. Betty was a teacher before working full time doing the administrative work for the dentistry practice. They both made films, together and individually. Although not professional filmmakers they took their hobby very seriously, and won many certificates for their films from the Leeds Camera Club – as this one did for Betty – which they helped found. This film received a certificate of merit from Leeds Camera Club in their annual film competition of 1960-61, awarded to Mrs A E Ramsden (Betty). This was one of seventeen awards they won after the Second World War – copies of these are held with the YFA along with some reminiscences written by Cyril.

 

By 1960 when they made this film they were near the end of their film-making career, only 3 of their films in the collection with the YFA were made in the 1960s. By this time they were very accomplished filmmakers, and this film is quite simple by comparison with others they made. One of these that relates directly to this is Humber Highway, again accredited solely to Betty, made in 1956. This shows Hull dock workers unloading ships, and is one of a number of films that the Ramsdens made that reveal an interest in different types of work; another being Craftsman of Kilburn (1948).

 

Other films that relate more closely to this one on YFA Online are the Harrison Compilation, made in the 1950s by David Harrison, a fish merchant at St Andrew’s docks; a film of St Andrew's Fish Dock, Hull, made by Ron Normanton, a member of the Halifax Cine Club, and Pot Luck a film about fishermen in Bridlington, both made just two years after this film in 1962.   Both of these offer interesting comparisons in the way the fish are handled: with Lowestoft showing itself to be a more sedate dock than St Andrew’s. The Contexts for these films provide information on the fishing industry at this time.

 

The starting point for this film, Bryan’s fish and chip shop in Leeds, has been going since 1934, and is still going strong, now a Fish and Seafood Restaurant it is just a stones throw from Headingley Stadium, home to Yorkshire County Cricket Club, Leeds Rhinos rugby league and Leeds Tykes rugby union clubs.  It would also have been just up the Otley Road from the Ramsden Dental Practice.

 

Rather surprisingly, given the national status that fish and chips have acquired in British popular culture – ‘as British as fish and chips’ – little has been written about it. The exception is John Walton, who, in his fascinating book, Fish and Chips and the British Working Class published in 1992, provides the principle source of information on the subject. He notes that the subject was so derided, as one too lowly for serious study, that his own work made it into Pseuds Corner of Private Eye; in his opinion for essentially snobbish reasons. This might explain why nothing similar to his work has appeared since this. But as his book shows, there has been much snobbishness in relation to fish and chips from its beginnings, and one might argue up until today. 

 

The strong association of fish and chips as being a specifically British national dish was actually a deliberate policy of traders in the early part of the twentieth century.  But the association is a deserved one: visitors are often queried as to whether they have sampled this delight – although perhaps less than they used to – often evoking a negative response! Although, apparently, it is also very popular in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, some coastal towns of the Netherlands and Norway, and also increasingly so in the United States.   But nothing like as much as it is here: Walton’s book convincingly shows the large social, economic and political significance of fish and chips; it is a pity it only takes us to 1940 (for a review see Bradley, References).

 

Much has been made of the fact that this quintessential British meal has Jewish and French origins: fish from Jewish settlers from Spain and Portugal in the 17th and 18th centuries, setting up shops to sell fried fish – originally Sephardi dish Pescado frito, or deep-fried fish – mainly in the East End of London in the early nineteenth century; chips from France, French frites, which took off in England around the same time as the fish did.  But then a look of much of what passes for ‘British’ turns out to have non-British origins.

 

It is thought that chips were mainly a northern dish and the fish a London based one, and that at sometime in the middle of the nineteenth century they came together. Despite the arguments over where the dish first saw the light of day, Walton claims that there isn’t enough evidence to settle this; however, the one that is usually given the credit of first combining fish and chips is a shop opened in Bow, in the East End of London, by Jewish proprietor Joseph Malin in 1860 – although it is said that he didn’t sell this combination until 1865 (another contender is John Lees who opened a fish and chip shop in Oldham in 1863).
 


But whatever the exact origins, once it got going fish and chips took off like wildfire (though for a long time some shops continued to sell just one or the other). As enlightened reformers like Charles Booth and Henry Mayhew showed, at that time there was huge poverty in the fast growing industrial cities, and food quality was very poor with adulteration rife – plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Fish and Chips were considered to be cheap and nutritious. Helped by the growth of the railway, one estimate puts the number of fish and chip shops in Britain as much as 10,000 by 1888, and at 30,000 by the early 1900s – Italian immigrants being quick to see a small business opportunity.  It reached its peak in 1927 when there were about 35,000 fish and chip shops in the UK, and this may well have been the figure on the eve of World War Two (Walton). It was the fastest growing retail trade. In Leeds in 1905 there was one fish and chip shop for every 400 people. In 1917 in Bradford they supplied 2 ½ meals a week for every man, woman and child. In some working class areas there was a fish and chip shop on almost every other corner.

 

The repercussions of this vast consumption of fish and chips was huge. In 1931 it was estimated that the trade employed 70,000 directly and 200,000 indirectly (at the docks, in transport, etc). It gave rise to steam trawlers, packing in ice, and boosted many subsidiary trades like cooking fat, frying ranges, tiles, refrigerators, potato peelers, washers and cutters, and so on.  The development of the steam trawler brought to these shores fish from all over the North Atlantic, around Iceland and Greenland, and off the North Cape of Norway. It took up as much as 25% of all white fish caught, and by 1939 as much as two thirds of all edible fish (Walton, p 7). The most common fish used for fish and chips in England was, and is, cod, but many kinds of fish are used, such as pollock or haddock, skate, and rock salmon (dogfish) – which has now largely gone. As far as potatoes are concerned, the proportion of total consumption used in fish and chip shops differs considerably according to region; with 10% in London, and 60% in the factory towns of South Lancashire.

 

Claims have been made that fish and chips prevented serious unrest by providing cheap and easy meals: the Northern Counties Federation of Fish Friers stated that in the aftermath of the First World War that, “we stood between the Government and grave discontent in congested districts and, more than any other trade in the country, between the very poorest of our population and famine and revolt.”  It is no surprise therefore that the government had a policy of encouraging fish and chip shops both during the Second World War and afterwards. There were about 20,000 in 1950 when rationing was still on, with the Times reporting that this declined to about 17,000 in 1957 after rationing ceased.  Today there are some 11,500 (still about eight shops for every one McDonalds), although of course these usually now sell much more than fish and chips.

 

Walton notes that lard was the most popular fat used in the West Riding of Yorkshire – which was by no means universal: other oils were often combined, including soya (England initiated modern soybean crushing in 1907).  Potatoes were usually home grown ­– some maintain that the best types to use for chips are 'Lincolnshire Whites' or 'Maris Piper' – although trade in products, such oils and other ingredients, came from all over the world. 

 

But fish and chip shops were not without their detractors. Even in the days before healthy foods became such a big issue they were challenged on health grounds.  They were also opposed because they were places for social gatherings, especially for young people.  Just prior to World War One Scotland started a full scale campaign against fish and chip restaurants on these grounds: teenagers staying out together late at night (ice cream parlours also came under fire for serving the same nefarious function). They also came under strict government regulatory controls in 1935.  Fish and chip shops were usually run by local small businesses that stayed close to their working class clientele; and Keighley fish fryers issued a statement blaming the regulations on capitalism and the banks. Fish and chips might have saved capitalism’s bacon, but Walton shows that the shops represented a degree of food control ‘from below’, and were important meeting places for communities.  

 

It might almost be said that fish and chip shop were centres of class warfare. Snobbishness against them led to the 1907 Public Health Act labelling them as an ‘offensive trade’, and the Town Planning Act of 1925 effectively banned fish and chip shops from the newly developing suburbs. Furthermore, for the big food companies that were developing they were serious competitors – although out of the big three: Birds Eye didn’t start up in Britain until 1938, and fish fingers didn’t emerge until 1955 when freezers were beginning to be mass produced; Findus arrived later still; and Ross, the only British company of the three, was then only a small family-owned fish merchanting company. Keighley fish fryers tried to keep ahead of the game when in 1936 they were the first to have a fast food delivery service, by motorcycle and side car!
 


So, Cyril Ramsden seems to be making a statement in eating his fish and chips out of a wrapper and walking in the street. He at least was no snob. Maybe there is a family connection with the famous Harry Ramsden who turned a run-down pub in Bradford into a fish and chip place, and opened a fish restaurant in Guiseley, on the outskirts of Leeds, in 1931. This was ahead of its time, having seating for 200, carpets and including music (Walton, p 34). Harry Ramsden even made special efforts to ensure he had the best vinegar, believing it to be the key to good fish and chips – as indeed it is.

 

References

 

Ian Bradley, ‘Food for Thought’, History Today, Volume 43, May, 1993.

John Walton, Fish and Chips and the British Working Class, Leicester University Press, 1992.

Bryan's Fish and Seafood Restaurant